The Act

Chapter VI
 What is ACT?
Act is for human, to act means simply to be a human.
Human act proceeds from the deliberate free will of
man (Glen, 1965).
Mere acts of human do not make them responsible for
their actions unless done with knowledge, freedom and
voluntariness. (Babor, 2006), which makes it
constituents of human acts (Agapay, 1991).
Constituents of Human Acts:
Knowledge
Awareness of the
agent to such act
knowing its
responsibilities and
consequences of the
action being done
Freedom
Unrestricted when
doing the actions thus
giving responsibility to
the agent doing an act
Voluntariness
Requires both
knowledge and freedom
to do a willing act
Feelings and Moral Decision-
Making
 Emotions can influence the
human ability to make decisions in
their every day life.
“Don’t make promises when you are happy,
don’t reply when you are angry, and don’t
decide when you are sad.”
Feelings: Instinctive Response to
Moral Dilemma
Kant’s Philosophy
Categorical Imperative states the one
should reason in only pure moral
grounding and act according to the
universal moral imperatives
Hume’s Philosophy
Moral sentiments are what drives to
human to do such an act i.e. passion for
eating, relatively hunger, passion for
others or lust, etc.
Emotions and Moral Decision-making
• Contexts contributes to salient emotion of
humans.
• Excessive emotions can outweighs the one’s
ability to make unbiased decisions
• Moral Decision-making depends on ethics,
manners, character and beliefs of humans.
Approaches to Moral
Decision
Utilitarian Approach
Ratio of who benefits and who are harmed
in the decision, and pick the decision that
can produce the greatest good whilst
minimizing the harm in the process.
Rights Approach
• “Who are involved and what are their
rights?”
• An act that does not respect everyone’s
rights, is a wrong act.
Fairness/ Justice Approach
• “Equals should be treated equally, unequal
unequally.”
• Having everyone to have the same rights
but disdaining those who are not in morally
justifiable reason and without favoring of
discriminating.
Common Good Approach
• Deciding on things that will bring the
human and the community to the common
good.
• Driving factor for a human to decide that
will benefits him/her and the society
Virtue Approach
• Deciding based of whom you become
• Reflects the internal values the human
upholds
Reason And Morality
Kant argued that the building blocks for
morality is reason alone
Freedom is necessary for morality
Universality gives the idea that an act is
moral if it applies for everyone, not only for
some.
Impartiality and Morality
Principle of Impartiality
• All humans are equal and must treated
accordingly.
• Interest and welfare of someone is bears
the same weight to anyone
• Equally for equal; Unequally for unequal
Impartiality and Morality: Categorical
Imperative
Universal • Impartial
All human are Not guided by own
rational biases.

Respect the
autonomy of each.
The 7-step Moral Reasoning Model
(Davis, 1999)
State the Problem
• Acknowledge that there exist a problem
• E.g.:
• The decision made makes me uneasy about it
• Is there a conflict of interest?
Check Facts
• Re-examine existing facts on the situation, this
helps to resolve miscommunications and
enforces radical changes
Identify relevant factors
• Same as checking facts, listing the factors that
resulted to the decision and looking to key ideas
that may be substantial for deciding.
• Develop list of options
• Avoiding dilemmas by creating ‘if-then’
statements; creating viable options to whom to
go, what to do in face of problems.
Test options
• Harm Test: Does this option harms others?
• Publicity Test: Would I want this option be published
on the newspaper?
• Defensibility Test: Could I defend this option to the
congress or committee of peers?
• Test options
• Reversibility Test: Would this option be good if I
am affected by it?
• Colleague Test: What will my ethics professor or
the guidance counseling body say about this?
• Organization Test: What would be the verdict of
the legal office about this?
Make a choice
• Basing from the decision made from step 1-5,
pick a suitable option for the problem
Review
• From the pick option return and scrutinize it
again basing from steps 1-6
• Does this decision will lessen making such
decision – avoids dilemma?
• Is there precaution to it?
• How about more support?
• Is there a way to change the organization?
Difference between Reason
and Will
Kant reason out if there is an ultimate moral
principles, one can derive it by purely reason
without taking accounts empirically or world
experiences.
If that’s such a thing, all you can do is to act
according to what is morally right, thus leaving no
room for decision like a robot.
Freedom is requirement for morality.
The ability to decide is the main framework for
deciding what is morally right or not.
Will and Reason
In determining the ultimate ground for morality,
two topics are crucial: will and reason
What extent they can provide for fundamentals of
moral action as human?
Is there a criterion of moral worthiness of an
action?
Kant’s Notion of Will and Reason
• Reason or qua action-directing is called practical,
and if will guided by reason can affect or cause
actions.
• Good will is good not because to what can it
affect but because it is good in itself, to reason to
produce will that is good in itself
Aquinas’s Notion of Will and Reason
• Will as appetite or desire, rationally, guided by reason.
• Will is what makes the agent to do an act, to attain the
good presented by the reason.